Is Mendilibar Able to Win the Greek League? | OneFootball

Photo Credits:

Michael Steel Olympiacos FC Training and Press Conference

Since Olympiacos won the Conference League in may 2024, many questions came into the

forefront. How to replace both Fortounis and Podence? Was the summer a complete failure

in terms of transfers? Was Mendilibar disrespected by the board? Why are we dropping so

much points?

Unfortunately, I cannot answer those questions. I am here to try and answer another question, which has come to the minds of Olympiacos fans: can José Luis Mendilibar lead the club to a Superleague title?

It might surprise you, I get it, to debate this over a coach that won two European trophies back-to-back with Sevilla and then Olympiacos, almost out of nowhere when both clubs were facing big issues and instability. From my point of view, I don’t think the Basque coach knows how to win a league. Or at least, the way he sees a domestic league compared to Europe is worrying to me. I might be one of the few Olympiakos fans that thought the Superleague was winnable last season, when Mendilibar arrived right after that horrible Carvalhal’s stint. Why? Because the quality of the squad back then was tremendous, with a lot of “ready” players (mentally and physically) but mainly because of the depth we had at that time.

IS ROTATING REALLY SUSTAINABLE?

We saw some immediate effects upon his arrival starting with that 1-4 in Toumba. But that loss against PAO in

the first playoff game, paired with another (late) defeat in OPAP Arena against AEK,

probably sealed it. What kind of pisses me off is the fact that the UECL title kind of erased

our playoffs in people’s minds. Some of Mendilibar’s choices costed us the league, such as

Navarro starting a derby against PAO at home, or such as that permanent rotation of CB’s

that indirectly led to that Ntoi’s mistake in Saloniki that was, for me, the exact moment in

which we lost the title.

Yes, it seemed almost impossible to win it but… it was still winnable given the schedule we

had. We would have been title contenders with a win there and we would have played it

against AEK (a game we won), PAOK (a loss in Toumba with again Navarro as a starter) and

PAO at Leoforos (a game we almost won while being 0-2 down). Having said that, I think we

don’t care that much, after all. Who remembers PAOK’s title ? They did not even play UCL nor

signed big names.

The playoff campaign highlighted Mendi’s limitations. At 63, he never won a decent domestic title and

also never coached the biggest club of any country before Olympiacos. And it shows.

Especially in the start of 2024-2025 Superleague season. Stubborness is probably his biggest

quality, because his recipe worked and still works in Europe. But it’s also his biggest liability

when it comes to winning a league.

An odd symptom of his stubbornness has to be his constant rotation. We all remember how long it took to Pedro

Martins to integrate some signings into his starting team (for example, Guilherme). But the

Portugese coach surely knew that it was the best recipe in a league in which you’re

dominating 80% of the games, if not more. And here lies my frustration : why does Mendilibar

keep using Ntoi as a CB when he's infinitely better as a #6? Why does he keep changing the CB pair every game or even DURING games with subs ? Why he’s always using 5 subs with a team that hasn’t found his

balance yet?

A PLAN B OUT OF HIS STUBBORNESS?

I cannot lie, I don’t have big hopes for us to win the Greek league. I don’t want Mendilibar to be

sacked because our consistency in Europe is more important than another Superleague

trophy for me. But the way he approaches Greek games will cost us more points this season,

even with a good winter mercato. Having no plan B when the A does not work is another big

issue we’re facing, even if he has to currently work with a squad he did not wanted, at least

for some cases.

So the real question we should be asking ourselves is: Can a 63 years old coach can evolve at

least a little bit to change his views about Superleague Because we clearly have what it

takes in terms of players to win it.